


C418 - Mice on Venus

by crow_fish



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, MASSIVE spoilers for the november 16th war, Post-November 16th SMP War, Tubbo Mention, fundy thinks about his feelings, hmmm, how the fuck do you tag shit on ao3 uhhhh, like one sentence of it, schlatt mention, very very brief talk of wilbur being dead, wilbur mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:54:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27610981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crow_fish/pseuds/crow_fish
Summary: Fundy kept the flag after he burnt it and took it down under Schlatt's rule, after the war, he decides to finally take it out.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	C418 - Mice on Venus

**Author's Note:**

> Literally massive spoilers for the November 16th War, I will not stress this enough, Huge Spoilers for it FGHJKL  
> Hope this isn't too messy though, I wrote it randomly in one sitting because I got hit with feelings, and Fundy's character needs to be regarded more in the SMP. I wish this wasn't so short too but ehh whatever, I'm happy with it  
> I do also recommend the song in the title, I looped it while writing this and it feels fitting :]  
> enjoy

For the longest time, he would have denied ever having it. He kept the large cloth tucked away in a chest, and even then, made sure to cover the old fabric in a thick layer of clutter, random flint without steel, sticks and books and near broken iron armor that had rusted from its use in nights of rain and war. Fundy took desperate precautions to make sure it wouldn’t be hurt any further. 

When the dust had settled, though, he knew it was time to finally admit it’s existence once more. Schlatt was no longer here to pose a threat to it’s livelihood, no more wars, or fires, no obsidian flags to take its place. Fundy knew, deep down, that one day he’d hang it up once more, but he didn’t know it would feel like this to do so. 

Pushing aside the bed he had placed in the corner of the room, conveniently covering a space in the flooring just big enough for the double chest, he could feel the weight of it on his shoulders. The weight of pulling a rope to hoist the flag up and up with everyone helping around him, the weight of a single torch in his hands, the weight of ash filling the sky and falling on his shoulders. He could feel the weight of years of war on his back, burrowing under his coat and into his skin. Privately, ages ago, he thought he would be used to that feeling, but he wasn’t, no matter how often he felt it. 

Clearing the clutter from the chest was somehow worse, his fingers occasionally catching feeling of the fabric, of hand-done stitches and burnt cloth that left the lightest smudges of soot on his fingertips. He took his time with it, removing every object he had hastily thrown on top of the flag when he had originally taken it down as per Schlatt’s request, when the rain had put out the final bit of fire and the flag has stopped swaying in the wind. Fundy had said he’d burn the rest of it in private, had held it in his arms with shaking hands as the leftover embers burned his skin and the rain drenched every bit of him, and when the only eyes on him was the universe’s, he hid the remains of the flag Niki had made, in desperate hope that this was enough of a symbol of guilt that he wouldn’t have to beg the world and his own subconscious for forgiveness. 

Only when the chest was cleared of all other inhabitants, did he finally look at it. It was still bunched up from when he had hurriedly shoved it in there, tears mixing into the rain’s soak, no doubt wrinkled at this point from years of awkward compression and heat, and the colors were all dulled slightly where they weren’t charred or missing. But it was beautiful. 

Picking it up again, Fundy let himself cry, let himself mourn and quickly clutch the old fabric to his chest as he heaved in shaky breaths. The flag was still massive, even with at least a quarter of it burnt, and it was heavy in his hands and where it pooled in his lap. It smelt of burning and dust and blood, and when he bunched up the fabric in tight fists so he could feel it more, even the texture was familiar. 

He hadn’t intended to, but as he sat there on his knees with the flag as close to his heart as he could manage, he realized he had ended up locking memories away when he did the flag, hiding them in nooks and crannies in his mind under clutter and the hope that painful nostalgia wouldn’t be his downfall. But now it was all free, memories of watching Niki sew the flag on her own for hours at a time, of war and blood and pain, of Wilbur brushing his hair and singing songs to him to help him calm down after getting hurt, all open to the air around him in the most wonderfully suffocating way. 

He could hardly stand it, letting out open raw sobs as every feeling he had shoved down, every memory, was laid out in the open. And in some way, he relished in it, relieved in the feeling of fully free crying and mourning, the feeling of finally being safe enough to even dare hurt over everything. 

And for a long while, he just sat there, let the emotions finally eat him up, tear the skin of his heart raw and exposed and stay there, let his tears soak into his soul and when he finally could breath and see clearly again, he felt whole again. 

It wasn’t nearly as difficult to stand up, to shake out as much dust from the flag as he could in the smaller space, and then fold it up to the best of his ability, one of the red X’s on perfect display in how he carefully folded the old fabric. It was almost easy, walking out into the day and down to the massive crater that Wilbur had created. That Wilbur had left him with. 

Tubbo had seemed surprised to see it- everyone had. Even folded up, it was familiar, a sense of awe seemed to surround it’s very existence, especially in Fundy’s hands. And when it was finally hung up again, all of them working to pull the rope that hoisted the giant frayed and burnt flag up onto a hastily made pole that would certainly be temporary, Fundy felt like he might have actually gotten forgiveness, if not from everyone else surrounding him, cheering and hollering at the return of the flag- of their flag- then from himself, once and for all.


End file.
